The Free Press · October 7, 2026
McGurk Book Recounts Final Hostage Negotiations and Release of 33
- Brett McGurk served as National Security Council coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa under President Joe Biden, and was the point person for the negotiations to free the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
- His book, Brink: Inside the Race to Free the October 7th Hostages, was published Tuesday, October 6; the Free Press piece is adapted from it.
- On November 20, 2024 — two weeks after Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris — McGurk and Jake Sullivan briefed their successors, Mike Waltz and Steve Witkoff, in a secure room in the U.S. Capitol.
- McGurk writes that on September 17, following the collapse of the hostage talks, an operation exploded thousands of beepers carried by Hezbollah militants in Lebanon — dubbed "Operation Grim Beeper" — and that he first heard of it from a Mossad contact.
- In the administration's final hours, Hamas agreed to release 33 hostages and the first stage of a ceasefire took effect.
Negotiation details are McGurk's account, adapted from his book Brink; facts above are from the article's accessible portion, as the piece is paywalled. Original headline: "Inside the Final Push to Free the October 7 Hostages".
Removed: the editors' anniversary-package framing ("the world October 7 made"), the characterization of the negotiations as "grueling," the subscription paywall pitch, and McGurk's quoted color from his Mossad contact.